Across the Emirates' skyline, most major works run on a FIDIC contract — and most FIDIC disputes are won or lost long before arbitration, in the discipline of notice and the quality of the record. This is how the claims machinery actually works onshore, and where the contract meets the mandatory rules of UAE law that no clause can displace.
Why FIDIC governs the Gulf's cranes
The FIDIC suite is the default vocabulary of UAE construction. Three forms dominate. The Red Book is used where the employer designs and the works are remeasured, with a named Engineer administering the contract. The Yellow Book shifts design responsibility to the contractor for plant and design-build. The Silver Book is a turnkey/EPC form with no Engineer — an Employer's Representative instead — and a heavier risk allocation to the contractor; despite FIDIC's own guidance that it suits contractor-controlled projects, UAE government entities increasingly favour it for mega-projects. Both the 1999 and 2017 editions are in circulation, and heavily amended "particular conditions" are the norm rather than the exception.
Under the Red and Yellow Books the Engineer sits at the centre of the claims process. The Engineer certifies payment, instructs variations, and — critically — must first attempt to agree and, failing agreement, determine claims. The Engineer acts for the employer but owes a duty to make determinations fairly. That dual character is the source of much of the friction that ends up in arbitration.
The claims machinery: notice, and the time-bar
Every FIDIC claim begins with notice, and notice is a condition precedent. Under the 1999 forms (Sub-Clause 20.1), a contractor who considers itself entitled to extension of time or additional payment must give notice to the Engineer within 28 days of becoming aware, or of when it ought to have become aware, of the triggering event. Miss that window and the entitlement is extinguished — time is not extended and the employer is discharged from liability for that claim. The 2017 forms restructured this into Sub-Clause 20.2: a 28-day Notice of Claim (still a condition precedent), followed by a fully detailed claim within 84 days, with the Engineer then proceeding under Sub-Clause 3.7 to agree or determine. The 2017 edition also made the regime more even-handed — employer claims are subject to the same notice discipline, and the Engineer must warn a party if it considers a notice late, failing which the notice is deemed valid.
In a UAE construction dispute the contract sets the rules of the game, but the contemporaneous record decides who wins it.
The anatomy of a claim
The recurring claim types map onto two currencies — time and money — that must be kept analytically distinct:
- Extension of time (EOT): relief from liquidated damages where a qualifying delay event pushes out completion. An EOT protects the programme; it does not by itself pay for anything.
- Delay and disruption: delay is lost time; disruption is lost productivity — labour and plant working less efficiently than planned, even where the end date is unaffected. They are proved differently and must not be conflated.
- Variations: changes instructed under the variation clause, valued using the contract's rates and pricing rules; the gateway dispute is often whether an instruction is a variation at all or merely clarification of existing scope.
- Prolongation costs: the time-related cost of staying on site longer — site overheads, supervision, accommodation, plant standing — recoverable where the delay is both excusable and compensable.
- Loss and expense / additional cost: the money limb attached to compensable events, subject to the contract's causation and record-keeping requirements.
- Acceleration: the cost of recovering time, most defensible when constructive — where a valid EOT was wrongly refused and the contractor was forced to accelerate to avoid damages.
Proving delay without overclaiming
Delay analysis is evidence, not arithmetic, and tribunals treat method selection as a matter of what the records can honestly support. The recognised approaches trade rigour against data: as-planned versus as-built is intuitive but coarse; time impact analysis models the prospective effect of an event on the programme at the moment it struck; collapsed as-built ("but-for") removes events from the actual record to test causation retrospectively; windowed or time-slice analysis tracks the shifting critical path across the job. No single method is "correct" — the choice must fit the contract, the quality of the baseline programme, and the available records. Concurrency — genuinely independent employer and contractor delays operating over the same period — remains the hardest question, going to whether the contractor gets time only, or time and money. Overstated global claims that cannot trace cause to effect are routinely discounted.
Where FIDIC meets the UAE Civil Code
FIDIC is a set of contract terms; it operates inside — never above — mandatory UAE law, and several rules cannot be drafted away:
- Good faith: long codified in Article 246 of the 1985 Code and carried forward, in expanded form (now reaching pre-contractual negotiation), into the 2025 Code. It colours how notice provisions and Engineer's determinations are read.
- Liquidated damages are adjustable: under Article 390 of the 1985 Code (Article 340 of the 2025 Code), a court or tribunal may vary agreed compensation up or down so it equals the actual loss, and any agreement to the contrary is void. A perfectly drafted delay-damages clause is therefore not the last word — though onshore courts have used this power with restraint.
- Decennial liability: Articles 880–883 of the 1985 Code (Articles 821–824 of the 2025 Code) impose joint ten-year liability on contractor and engineer for structural collapse or defects threatening stability, running from handover. It is strict, cannot be excluded (any exclusion is void), and claims must be brought within three years of discovery.
From determination to arbitration
The pathway is tiered. A claim goes first to the Engineer's determination (or to a Dispute Adjudication/Avoidance Board where one exists), then through a contractual amicable settlement window, and — very commonly on UAE projects — into arbitration, typically administered onshore under the UAE Federal Arbitration Law (Federal Law No. 6 of 2018). Careful attention to the arbitration agreement's validity and signing authority is essential, as is awareness that some matters intersect with the onshore courts. The practical lesson: honour the contractual steps in sequence, because skipping a mandatory tier can itself become a jurisdictional defence.
None of this rewards eloquence at the hearing. It rewards the party that gave notice on time, kept daily records, priced its variations as it went, and can put a coherent, contemporaneous story in front of the tribunal. In construction, the record wins.
Instruments referred to: Federal Law No. 5 of 1985 (Civil Transactions Law / "1985 Civil Code"), Articles 246, 390 and 880–883; Federal Decree-Law No. 25 of 2025 (Civil Transactions Law / "2025 Civil Code," in force 1 June 2026), including the muqawala provisions (Articles 812–839) and Articles 340 and 821–824; and Federal Law No. 6 of 2018 (UAE Arbitration Law), alongside the FIDIC Conditions of Contract (1999 and 2017 Red, Yellow and Silver Books). This is general information, not legal advice.